10 March, 2023
Within the framework of the 'Kosova Innovation Social Transformation' Project, whose main objective is to increase digital literacy among Kosova youth through creative means, we organized the ‘Human Interest Stories’ Winter School, with our partners Kosovo Education Center and Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The school was preceded by one-day lectures as part of the project, on the basics of filmmaking by facilitator and filmmaker Zgjim Terziqi, for each of the participating 10 schools media clubs, three weeks prior to the winter school.
The school gathered two representative students from each of the media clubs visited - which totaled to 20 students - accompanied by their teachers to Istog on Saturday (4th of March) to undergo the two day intensive training on digital literacy, namely addressing misinformation, and develop critical thinking. As per the school’s approach to teach kids through creative means the school’s module does this through teaching kids the processes of visual storytelling. Each of the participating schools were tasked to choose a topic for the short film they will have the chance to realize during the next phases of the project. The topics the students chose concerned critical issues of their time, many of which involved the navigation of the digital world and its social implications.
The school kicked off with a speech by the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Carin Lobbezoo who spoke about the importance of knowing how to critically navigate the digital social platforms.
The training started with a lecture by Arbnore Ismajli, who spoke about bullying and cyberbullying, its impact and the necessary steps to take after recognizing it. A lecture on research techniques by Kosovo 2.0 manager editor Gentiana Paqirizi and trainings on visual storytelling and its processes by the schools' facilitators and filmmakers Trendelina Halili and Zgjim Terziqi, followed.
The students then were given time to apply what was learned and work on their research proposal. The first day was wrapped up by a digital, interactive game which got the students scouting and exploring the whole three floors of the facility where the winter school was held.
For the whole of the second day the students had to present their ideas to the jury made up of filmmaker Trendelina Halili, DokuLab Head, Eroll Bilibani and Project Manager and Producer, Zana Arapi. The juries helped shape these ideas to concrete and executable projects in the next phases of the project.
